by Laura Lam
My classmates lived some distance from my house. We only met in school and rarely visited each other at home. My two childhood friends outside the classroom were Lien and Cam who were also my immediate neighbours. They never attended any school. Lien was thin, with a dark complexion, fierce looking eyes, and talkative. She used a clip to tie her long hair at the back. Cam was chubby, with light skin, the youngest daughter of Mrs Sau. Her elder sister Que had given her a bob style haircut after her trip to Sai Gon, which made her look quite different from the rest of the girls in the village. The children gave Cam the nickname Cam Phi – Plump Orange, and Lien was known as Huyen Lien – Black Lily.
Their mothers never beat them and rarely shouted. I preferred to be at their houses, or just in the open field with trees and shrubs. We always created our own toys. I could make a grasshopper or a bird out of a palm leaf, a basket or a boat out of rice stalks. Lien could produce a flute from a bamboo pipe. We never had any kind of paper to play with, as it was too precious.
I was at the second school for less than two years. It was severely damaged by an ARVN raid and the surrounding fields were badly burnt, including the bamboo hedges. Witnessing the destruction of our school, we students were very upset. While waiting for another school to be built, my maternal grandmother kept saying how lucky the children were not to have suffered any injury. Finally the government itself decided to build a new one – right next door to Constance Garrison, the ARVN camp.
* * *
When France took over the South as its colony, our village of Truong An was officially renamed “Constance” and became home to a military garrison. Throughout the long period of French domination, however, the residents always made a distinction between village and garrison. They continued to call the first by its old name, Truong An, and used Constance just for the Garrison. Constance, despite being in a remote and rather isolated zone, was no ordinary ARVN outpost. It had been considered strategically important by the French and even more by the American-backed regime.
Children attending “Constance School” had to wear white blouses and white shirts. Wearing white distinguished us from the “Viet Cong” – who dressed in black uniforms. It also helped the authorities to identify us whenever there was a bombing raid.
Every day before class all thirty children had to stand up to sing “Worshipping President Ngo” (Suy Ton Ngo Tong Thong), in addition to the National Anthem. The song began, “Who, for so many years, has dedicated his own life to our mountains and our rivers, and has saved our land and our people…leading the country to freedom. President Ngo one thousand years. President Ngo one thousand years. President Ngo one thousand years…” We, as little children, had to remember this song by heart. We did not know then, that President Ngo had come directly from a Catholic seminary in New Jersey. He had never dedicated his life to our mountains and rivers or done anything to save our land and our people.
I went to school by myself – a thirty-minute journey. The village road wound its way between shrubs and trees, following a clear water stream. On the other side were mostly rice fields and a few buffalo huts. I had to cross a long monkey bridge – where I stopped to watch flocks of white ducks floating on the water, families of snails clinging to the trunks of the water palm, and pairs of birds singing in the trees.
Hung and I attended Constance School but we traveled there each day on different roads. From this time until I left the village in 1963, I wouldn’t change schools again. Every time our school building was damaged by gunfire, it was quickly repaired by the government.
As Constance Garrison was next door, I often saw ARVN soldiers wandering outside, even around the schoolyard, unarmed, their army shirts hanging loose. It was safe for them to walk around the school building, because the Nationalists would never fire at the school. In my memory, the image of those government soldiers was accompanied by a hot, dry, intense, and acrid smell, a vivid contrast to the cool, wet, calm, and mangrove-scented smell of the Nationalist soldiers.
The Catholic Church next door to the Garrison and the Channel on the north side were also named Constance. The fortified area of the Garrison, triangular in shape, covered over two thousand square metres and contained four blockhouses – a tall and large one in the middle and one at each corner of the triangle – designed with dozens of small loopholes (lo chau mai) for observation and firing weapons. All four blockhouses were buttressed with heavy sandbags. The Garrison walls were made of a mixture of dry hay and earth, strengthened by sandbags from ground level up to a height of about four metres. The barracks paralleled the three sides of the Garrison. Their walls were also reinforced with sandbags.
The entire fortified area was surrounded with defensive moats, each about ten metres wide and two deep. There were six layers of barbed wire, plus a thick iron fence for additional protection. The surrounding area consisted of open green fields. The public was banned from these, because they were where helicopters landed and took off.
All of the classes at Constance School, from grade one to five, were held six days a week, some in the morning and others in the afternoon. But what we children never knew was that the school served a second purpose. At night it became an interrogation, torture, and execution centre. I learned much later that, from 1957 until the end of the American War in 1975, a total of 564 Vietnamese were executed in those classrooms at night. All the victims were labelled “Viet Cong,” and were either beheaded or disembowelled. I would arrive at school and sometimes see a strange, reddish-brown liquid and dark stains in the yard outside. I often smelled and sensed something peculiar in the air too, without knowing it was the distinctive smell of spilt human blood and of flesh and bones brutally crushed in the night. The victims’ angry spirits always inhabited the air, to haunt those still living. It was only several years later, after we moved to Sai Gon and revisited the village that my aunt-in-law Mo Muoi explained to us about the strange liquid. She said that it was a mixture of stale blood and water, from the executioners of Constance Garrison washing down the classroom floors after each nocturnal slaughter.
The students of Constance School served as human shields for the Garrison during the American War. Whenever the Nationalist forces staged their attacks on the Garrison, they had to restrain themselves so that the children would not be hurt. How many battles took place there while I was still living in the village I couldn’t say, but during my return visit to Truong An after the war, the local authorities allowed me to see a record of 621 engagements, fought from 1954 to 1975 between the two armies. A total of 2,850 ARVN soldiers and two American military ‘advisors’ were killed. There was no record kept of American soldiers abandoned by their own troops or kidnapped by the Nationalists, however. The combined casualties in the NLF army and the civilian population were many times higher.
* * *
In 1958 my mother stopped working in the rice fields. During one of my father’s home visits she told him that farming labour was too strenuous for her, “Master, I really want to do something else. I’ve saved all the money from the sales of the pig and the chickens and now need some more cash to buy a sewing machine.”
“What are you going to do with a sewing machine, my dear?” he asked.
“I will take sewing lessons and sew clothes for people, to earn an income,” she explained. “I don’t want to be dependent on you forever.”
My father agreed and they went to Thanh Chau with three thousand piasters to purchase a Mitsubishi sewing machine. When it arrived, dozens of people in the village came to view it. One village man and my mother even argued for a long time over the pronunciation of the word “Mitsubishi.” My mother began her sewing lessons immediately. As with the cooking instructor who had given my mother cake lessons earlier, every time the sewing instructor arrived, she asked me to close all the doors and windows. “Make sure you close everything, little Hoa Lai! I don’t want anybody to steal the valuable lessons,” she said.
Soon the village women asked my mother to do sewing for
them. She earned a good income and began to make nice clothes for herself. She continued to wear the traditional blouse, called ao ba ba, but her favourite blouses were now in the colours of banana leaf green, eggplant purple, and dusky pink, instead of black. Her satin trousers were always black, however. My mother used the leftover fabrics to make something for me and, later, for my baby brother, Nghia, meaning Charity, who was born in the Year of the Pig, 1959.
* * *
At the beginning of the monsoon season in 1961 we were forced into the Strategic Hamlet at gunpoint (I will describe later). This was a form of house arrest applied to an entire community. We were all uprooted at short notice. My grandmother told us we must be resigned to our fate and get ourselves “settled” inside the fortified village and try to make the best of it. However, the NLF was determined to launch a major attack on Constance Garrison as part of a plan to free us. In the mean time I continued attending the government school.
My father was living in Sai Gon and he visited us in the Strategic Hamlet during the Lunar New Year holidays. My grandmother was staying at the house of Uncle Nghiem, Nam’s younger brother. Both Nghiem and his wife were working full time. They had a maid who looked after the two young children, but Nghiem wanted my grandmother there to supervise. For the New Year – which we called Tet – my grandmother sent me a pair of cotton pyjamas in apricot, new slippers, a pretty ivory comb, and a fan made of banyan leaves. My father had bought a few pieces of fabric for my mother and he also gave her a stack of bank notes. My two little brothers were provided with T-shirts and even given some modern toys – a jumping green frog and a little red metal car operated by battery. These created a sensation among the village children and they started coming to our house each day for at least a week.
Father had bought me enough white cotton fabric for two blouses, a leather school bag, and one printed book of illustrated stories of Vietnamese heroines, written for children. The story of the Trung Sisters, Viet Nam’s first monarchs, was my favourite. It described the long struggle of the two sisters and how they had organized and commanded a strong army and crushed a Chinese invasion in 39 AD. Together they were proclaimed Queens of a new and independent state. But their victory was short-lived. Four years later the Han Emperor sent a more powerful army and defeated them. The Queens were obliged to commit suicide by drowning in the Hat Giang River. For the next thousand years, the Vietnamese would continue to fight against China’s repeated invasions.
Nguyen Trai, a prominent scholar of the 15th century, wrote of the Vietnamese struggle to defend our land:
Our people long ago were established as an independent nation with its own civilization. We have our own mountains and rivers, customs and traditions, and these are different from those of the foreign country to the north (China). We have sometimes been weak and sometimes powerful, but at no time did we suffer from a lack of heroes.
I showed this book to Thay Tuan, my new teacher, who shared the stories in class. Thay reminded us that Vietnamese culture had been developed in the Red River Valley long before China established its rule over Viet Nam and that future generations should try to preserve our country’s cultural authenticity. Thay was extremely knowledgeable about the history of our country and all the battles against the Chinese.
During this New Year visit my father could foresee the danger if we were to remain in Truong An. He detested the confined living arrangement and said to my mother, “I think I must get all of you out of here. The sooner the better.”
“I’m not moving!” My mother quickly answered. “All my relatives are here and I want to stay here with them.”
“But what about the children? I am worried about their safety.” My mother went on, “We can’t leave my mother here, and there are my brothers and sisters and their children. We all will stay here and die here.”
“ You can stay as you wish,” my father said with an angry voice. “I will take the children to Sai Gon with me.”
My mother walked away and said out loud to him, “No! I will not let you, Master! I will never let you take them away from me.”
For the remainder of his visit my father refused to speak to my mother. She appeared quite pleased at having won the argument. ***
We were in the spring of 1962, Year of the Tiger. It was early afternoon and I was walking toward my school. No other children from my section of the Strategic Hamlet were going to school because their parents were too upset and angry at the government. My mother did not want me to go either, but she had to respect my father’s wishes. Uncle Muoi also allowed Hung to continue and he was in the same class as me. Uncle Muoi, his family, and my grandmother were living in a different section of the Hamlet.
I strolled along carrying my school bag. Suddenly I met several soldiers in ARVN uniform sitting at the roadside near some bushes. They stood up.
“Go home, little girl,” one of them said.
“I’m going to school,” I replied. “I can’t go home now.”
“You have to go home. Forget about school.”
They were very insistent. I refused to listen to them, “Why shouldn’t I go to school?”
Then one of them stepped aside and with an exasperated gesture, said, “All right, go ahead then! Go on to your school!”
I had no way of knowing, nor could they tell me, that a battle was about to take place. Or that they, these men in ARVN uniforms, were really Nationalist soldiers in disguise.
I headed straight for school, wondering what on earth the soldiers were doing there, in the middle of the countryside. I attended class as usual and never mentioned to anyone that I had met the soldiers. At break-time I walked to the house of an elderly lady, Mrs Xa, who sold several varieties of crawling cakes, which are similar to sponge cake and eaten with hot coconut milk. I liked her cakes very much and went to her house twice a week to buy them. There, we heard gunfire, followed by the zinging of bullets nearby. I leaned out from her kitchen window and saw sparks of fire in the air. I heard Mrs Xa’s trembling voice, “Heaven and Earth! Oh no! They’re coming again!” Immediately she grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me to a corner of her kitchen, where a giant rice barrel stood.
We lay flat on the earthen floor behind the rice barrel as the shooting continued. The air in the house was suddenly alive with flying bullets. Then a large explosion shook the ground. A series of explosions followed immediately. While the ground was rocking, the un-husked rice inside the barrel began sliding towards us, making a loud rustling noise through holes torn by bullets. Holding our breath, neither of us spoke. Peering through the open cracks of the kitchen’s palm leaf wall I could see soldiers in black uniforms firing steadily at the walls of Constance Garrison. From the Garrison, repeated splashes of fire sprouted in the air in retaliation. A row of palm leaf houses went up in flames and people burst out in all directions, like panicking ants. Mushrooms of black smoke and orange flames were rising in the air.
Through the curtain of gray smoke I saw wounded men and women being lifted upon stretchers and taken away. A group of very young Nationalist soldiers were playing harmonicas at the same time. Mrs Xa whispered to me, “Little one, do you know that the harmonicas lift the soldiers’ spirits? Such music inspires them and makes them fight harder, without fear.” The explosions began again, more rapid and louder, and more men and women fell to their knees. The powerful burning smell of combat nearly suffocated me. I thought of death and dying. I thought of my own death. I rolled myself closer to Mrs Xa and prayed to Quan Yin to save us.
Gradually the thundering noises of the battle died away. All living soldiers as well as the dead ones had already disappeared from the rice field. They left behind little pools of bloodstains, blankets of burned grass, and a nauseating odour. Quietly Mrs Xa went outside to check in all directions. She came back and put her arms around me, “You can go home now, little one. But be very careful. If you see them on the road again, run right back to me. I will be here.” She gave me a big hug and her eyes were almost in te
ars, “Bye Hoa Lai!” I hurried to the door, “Bye Mrs Xa!” I thought of Hung and wondered where he was. Bracing myself, I quickly got onto the road and ran as fast as I could. About fifteen minutes later I saw my mother approaching from a distance. When she recognized me, she sighed with relief.
“You are all right but how is Hung?” My mother asked. “Was he not with you?”
“I don’t know Mother. I don’t know where he is.” I worried about Hung too and tried not to cry while answering her. “Tell me what happened at school!”
“During break I went to Mrs Xa to buy some cake and the fighting broke out. I was with her the whole time. Hung was at school.”
“I was afraid that you and Hung might have been killed. Mo Muoi must have been at the school already, to look for him.”
“Are we now going to the school or home? Mother!”
“Home. Quickly. We will see your grandma. Let’s hope Hung is not hurt in the attack.” The Hamlet section where my grandmother and Uncle Muoi’s family lived was closer to the Garrison and the school and we thought that Mo Muoi must have found Hung by now. Walking as fast as I could behind my mother, I kept thinking about him. Was he wounded, or dead? I felt like crying.
When we arrived at Uncle Muoi’s house, Mo Muoi and Hung were already there. Hung refused to speak. His head was covered with a bandage and his white shirt was dotted with bloodstains. Mo Muoi described the classroom scene, “The roof and some wall sections were blown off and scattered on the ground. Hung was crying among other wounded children. I noticed that Thay had cuts and bruises on his face, and lots of bloodstains on his clothes. He had a band of white cloth around his wounded arm. Two women were tending the children. One woman was weeping. Hoa Lai wasn’t among them. I ran out side to look but there was no sign of her.”